Pakistan’s sacked judges to be restored May 12

By Muhammad Najeeb Lahore, May 2 (IANS) Pakistan’s sacked judges will be restored May 12 through a parliamentary resolution, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Nawaz Sharif announced here Friday, a day after concluding talks with ruling coalition partner Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in Dubai. Addressing a meeting of his party’s Central Working Committee, Sharif said: “The deposed judges will be restored on May 12, through a resolution, to the Nov 2 position.”

He said a five-member committee comprising Aitezaz Ahsan, Khawaja Haris, Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim, Hafeez Pirzada and Mian Raza Rabbani will give final shape to the draft resolution in this regard.

Sharif said during his Dubai parleys, he had told PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari that the PML-N will not be part of the government if the sacked judges are not restored.

He said that Zardari had agreed and the judges would be restored May 12.

Earlier, both parties had decided to restore the superior court judges who were sacked by President Pervez Musharraf Nov 3 last year when he declared emergency.

Sharif said if the PPP delayed restoring the judges beyond May 12, his party would quit the cabinet but continue to support the government.

Referring to President Musharraf, Sharif said that more than 60 judges were sacked just on one person’s will as they were hearing his case.

A PML-N leader, who attended the meeting, told IANS that Sharif was very clear in stressing that his party would not compromise on further delay in restoring the judges.

Sharif told parliamentarians of his party that after the judges are restored, the PML-N would aim for the removal of President Musharraf, who dismissed Sharif’s government in October 1999, grabbed the power and later sent him into exile to Saudi Arabia.